At the ballpark, Fernando Tatis Jr. remains a popular figure.
When he goes to right field before games, fans welcome him with applause.
When he stands in his first at-bat, he’s cheered from throughout the ballpark.
Slump? What slump?
The paying customers are sending Tatis a message: he’s still their guy.
Would every other big-league fan base be as supportive of a high-salaried slugger who has no home runs through 38 games this year, a career-long drought?
Not all of them.
But that’s not important, because San Diego and Tatis are a tandem, joined together by a large contract and several years of mostly successful history.
Peter Seidler and A.J. Preller signed the right-handed slugger to a 14-year, backloaded pact in February 2021 to keep him with the team deep into his 30s. All the $340 millon is guaranteed. Tatis has no-trade powers as part of the deal.
Stoking Seidler and Preller’s interest beyond Tatis’ stupendous power-and-speed display across his first 143 games — 39 home runs, a .582 slug rate and 29 stolen bases — was the fledgling love affair between the exciting Tatis and Padres fans. Before his first full season in 2021, Tatis was already one of the most marketable athletes to play for a San Diego sports team.
When the big contract was announced, Seidler mentioned a fan base that would soon lift the Padres to second in MLB attendance in multiple seasons, with another shot at it this year.
“We want to honor the support our extraordinary fans give us,” the team chairman said.
With Tatis helping to lead the way, the Seidler forecast had the Padres punching above their small-market status in three areas: on the field, at the gate and in player payroll.
For the most part, Seidler was right.
And when the Padres franchise was sold this spring, Seidler’s actions were further validated: the agreed-upon price of $3.9 billion blew away the MLB record set by the big-market Mets.
Padres games had become a happening.
As it has turned out, that mattered to potential buyers.
“Basketball and baseball are very similar: it’s about local revenue generation,” Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob, one of the bidders that lost out to the group headed by investors José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones, told Sportico this week.
Lacob elaborated on the similarity between MLB and NBA economics.
“If you look at the lines of where the revenue comes from — tickets, same; sponsorships/partnerships, same; suites, same.”
Padres fans have done their part on several levels. They helped boost revenues above those of the Padres’ rivals in small and medium markets. And they assisted in making the club very attractive to buyers.
Paying the fans back Saturday, Tatis lobbed a broken-bat, two-run single to right field, breaking a 1-1 tie in the fifth inning.
The cheers Tatis got from the 18th announced sellout crowd in 22 home dates were very loud.
Padres teammates and coaches, in the meantime, will continue to do what they can to bolster a slugger who hit 25 home runs last year.
“We’re just trying to support him in any way that we can, and trust that he’s going to figure this out,” manager Craig Stammen said before Saturday’s game. “He’s a premium athlete. So, I’m not worried about it.”